Cyrix MII 250

This models specs
CPU: Cyrix MII 250
GPU: Silicon Integrated Systems SIS 530/630
Ram: 512M
Floppies: 1.44M 3.5”, 1.2M 5.25”
Optical: CD ROM
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ATA IV ST320011A 20G HD
OS: Slackware 15.0
Expansion:
PCI Lite-On LNE100TX Ethernet
PCI VIA Tech USB 2.0
PI CALC TIME: (time echo “scale=4000;a(1)*4” | bc -l) 7m58s

This computer has been made from pieces. Its a generic mid tower case matched with a Compaq monitor, KeyTronic keyboard and Logitech ball mouse. The mainboard is also a Compaq and dmidecode reports the product name as 05C4h. Its a Socket 7 board with 2 ISA, 3 PCI slots.

Usability notes:
This computer hits a sweet spot for me. Its pretty retro but has just enough power to stream music and work comfortably using ssh. The music doesn’t even skip! :) Installing Slackware 15 took so long I can’t tell you how long it took. I left it installing and went to bed. It was done in the morning. I love the dual floppy support.




Overview picture of the computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse. The mid tower case is black and grey. Top down we have a CD ROM, 5.25” floppy, 3.5” floppy, blank, then power buttons and vents.


Showing off the X sesson using Fluxbox window manager. Light weight enough for it to run reasonably well on this computer. Showing here is xeyes, the Links browser, urxvt terminal window showing the output of neofetch.

Looking inside the case we see the mainboard has 3 PCI, 2 ISA, 3 RAM sockets, and a very small heat sink and fan.